Northbound lanes of highway 101 traffic remained closed into the afternoon. Traffic was diverted onto downtown Sausalito streets after a 28-car pile-up on the Waldo Grade in Sausalito, Calif. on 3/11/06. Two passengers in one of the vehicles died in the accident which occurred at around 2:30 a.m.
KIM KOMENICH/The Chronicle

Photo: KIM KOMENICH

Northbound lanes of highway 101 traffic remained closed into the...

Image 2 of 12

-

Photo: KIM KOMENICH

-

Image 3 of 12

A Highway Patrol investigation team collects evidence at the scene of a 28-car pile-up on the Waldo Grade in Sausalito, Calif. on 3/11/06. Two passengers in one of the vehicles died in the accident which occurred at around 2:30 a.m.
PAUL CHINN/The Chronicle

Photo: PAUL CHINN

A Highway Patrol investigation team collects evidence at the scene...

Image 4 of 12

A CHP offficer tries to get access inside a pickup involved in the crash as a Highway Patrol investigation team collects evidence at the scene of a 28-car pile-up on the Waldo Grade in Sausalito, Calif. on 3/11/06. Two passengers in one of the vehicles died in the accident which occurred at around 2:30 a.m.
PAUL CHINN/The Chronicle

Photo: PAUL CHINN

A CHP offficer tries to get access inside a pickup involved in the...

Image 5 of 12

A Highway Patrol investigator walks carefully through the debris while collecting evidence at the scene of a 28-car pile-up on the Waldo Grade in Sausalito, Calif. on 3/11/06. Two passengers in one of the vehicles died in the accident which occurred at around 2:30 a.m.
PAUL CHINN/The Chronicle

Photo: PAUL CHINN

A Highway Patrol investigator walks carefully through the debris...

Image 6 of 12

-

Photo: PAUL CHINN

-

Image 7 of 12

A Highway Patrol officer fills out a report as an investigation team collects evidence at the scene of a 28-car pile-up on the Waldo Grade in Sausalito, Calif. on 3/11/06. Two passengers in one of the vehicles died in the accident which occurred at around 2:30 a.m.
PAUL CHINN/The Chronicle

Photo: PAUL CHINN

A Highway Patrol officer fills out a report as an investigation...

Image 8 of 12

-

Photo: PAUL CHINN

-

Image 9 of 12

A driver (who refused to provide his name) involved in the accident inspects damage to the van he was driving. Police officers allowed him to drive the van away from the scene several hours after the accident. A Highway Patrol investigation team collects evidence at the scene of a 28-car pile-up on the Waldo Grade in Sausalito, Calif. on 3/11/06. Two passengers in one of the vehicles died in the accident which occurred at around 2:30 a.m.
PAUL CHINN/The Chronicle

Photo: PAUL CHINN

A driver (who refused to provide his name) involved in the accident...

Image 10 of 12

-

Photo: PAUL CHINN

-

Image 11 of 12

The passenger-side door from the car with two fatalities was wrapped onto the back of the SUV that it hit during the accident. A Highway Patrol investigation team collects evidence at the scene of a 28-car pile-up on the Waldo Grade in Sausalito, Calif. on 3/11/06. Two passengers in one of the vehicles died in the accident which occurred at around 2:30 a.m.
PAUL CHINN/The Chronicle

Photo: PAUL CHINN

The passenger-side door from the car with two fatalities was...

Image 12 of 12

Marin County coroner's investigator Pam Carter and CHP spokesman Sgt. Wayne Zeise take an up-close look at a door from the car that two passengers died in that was wrapped onto the back of an SUV. as Highway Patrol investigation teams collect evidence at the scene of a 28-car pile-up on the Waldo Grade in Sausalito, Calif. on 3/11/06. Two passengers in one of the vehicles died in the accident which occurred at around 2:30 a.m.
PAUL CHINN/The Chronicle

San Francisco cabbie Mort Weinstein had picked up a fare at Fisherman's Wharf and was headed to Marin City early Saturday when he emerged from the Waldo Tunnel on Highway 101 to find himself in a freak blizzard.

Slushy snow coated a hillside illuminated by the taillights of panicked drivers careering out of control. Weinstein hit the brakes, but there was nothing he could do.

"There were four to five cars already colliding with each other," Weinstein, 51, recalled. "My car wheels locked. I started to slide. The front of the car careened off the rear of another car. It was such a profoundly shocking event. Nothing like this has ever happened here."

Weinstein's Yellow Cab was among 28 vehicles that slammed into one another at 2:28 a.m., creating a monstrous pileup some seasoned California Highway Patrol officers called the worst they'd ever seen.

Two people were killed and more than a dozen injured, and the northbound lanes were closed for 11 hours as authorities cleared wreckage scattered hundreds of feet along the roadway.

"This was a war scene with the amount of casualties, even though it turns out most of them were minor," said CHP Sgt. Wayne Ziese.

Authorities said there were between 4 and 6 inches of slush and snow blanketing the downhill grade outside the Waldo Tunnel, catching drivers unaware as they sped through the tunnel and slid uncontrollably down the hill.

Dimitris Koutsoukos, 51, was returning home to Marin County from a Greek restaurant in San Francisco when he saw the brake lights and tried to stop. His Mercedes-Benz slid 200 yards before he hit a car and another car hit him.

"I thought it was raining," he said, surveying the wreckage later Saturday. "I didn't think it was snow because I never experienced snow.

"I couldn't believe how much snow was on the ground. ... I was thankful I was OK."

Much of the region experienced snow, sleet, hail or rain Friday night and into Saturday morning as an unusually large Arctic cold front blew in from the north, bringing colder air and more precipitation than normal for this time of year.

The slippery roads caught drivers unaware, and most of them were simply moving too fast for the conditions -- particularly along the Waldo Grade, a steep hill with a sharp curve, Ziese said.

"Pretty soon it's boom-boom-boom-boom-boom. I don't recall a pileup of this nature in 20-some years in the Bay Area."

Several cars into the pileup, Girardo De la Torres lost control of his silver Honda Civic and slid broadside into an sport utility vehicle, Ziese said.

Two Santa Rosa women -- Consuelo Garcia, 30, and Adelle Guerrero, 26 -- riding with him were killed despite efforts by a doctor and off-duty paramedic to save them. Both women were married, and Garcia had two children, authorities said.

CHP officers initially suspected De la Torres was drunk and arrested him, but released him after a blood test revealed his blood-alcohol level was "very low," Ziese said. Investigators, however, are still trying to determine whether the 28-year-old Petaluma man was driving recklessly.

Doctors at Marin General Hospital treated De la Torres for moderate injuries, but hospital officials would provide no further details.

The hospital treated four other motorists -- including Weinstein, who suffered a swollen ankle and scrapes from his air bag -- and released them.

The pileup scattered wreckage 350 to 400 feet along the road. Dented cars faced every which way, strewn like bowling pins in what Ziese called "a jigsaw puzzle of cars." Broken glass, license plates, bashed fenders and CD cases littered the highway.

By early afternoon, northbound traffic was flowing down the Waldo Grade. The crushed vehicles had been hauled away, the shards of glass and other debris swept clean.

Curtis Glace was the first CHP officer to arrive at the crash site, and he found a surreal scene of snowy chaos and confusion. Car horns and alarms blared as people, many of them standing outside their cars, yelled for help.

"I have never seen anything like that," Glade said. "Everyone was sliding, and everything happened so fast. ... One person said they kept getting hit so much they couldn't keep track."

Ziese said a CHP trooper had driven through the area 15 minutes before and the road was clear, without a trace of snow. Ray Pressley, an 18-year-old Tiburon man, said he was headed southbound on 101 when a sudden downpour turned to snow.

He fishtailed, then spun three times. He saw a delivery truck sliding sideways toward him and managed to pull to the shoulder, where he watched the pileup unfold on the other side of the road.

"It was the slipperiest conditions I have ever seen," said Pressley, who returned to the scene later in the day Saturday. "There was nothing I could have done to avoid spinning out. The cars were just sliding down the hill. They would just come in one after the other, crunch, crunch, crunch. It's a sound I'll never forget."

Pressley and his friend ran to the other side of the freeway to see if they could help.

"People were completely panicked," he said "Everyone was running around crazy for a while."

But Weinstein said he thought most people were surprisingly calm as the snow continued to fall.

They were "very orderly and cold and scared" and especially concerned about the occupants of the Honda Civic, who were clearly the most severely injured, he said.

The little Honda had slammed into the center divide with a sedan, its passenger door embedded in the back of an SUV.

Glace was summoned to the vehicle, where a doctor was trying to help an unconscious woman in the front seat. They laid out some blankets, and the doctor tried to administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Only then did they notice the woman in the backseat who had already died.

Although many people had remained calm, Weinstein said he had panicked when he found he couldn't open the front doors of his cab. He climbed over the seat and followed his passenger out of the car, worrying he might be hit by a skidding car.

He stood there in the cold amid the wreckage for a while before he realized that his passenger must have walked home.

"We had quite an adventure," Weinstein said. "I'm feeling like I must be a lucky guy."